Late Period Cannon 12-14-09 Early Bombards During the 15th century, artillery crossed a threshold in gunpowder technology from the big bombards. Bombards were developed to beat at castle walls, and the French artillery took that basic function and improved upon it - considerably. Bombards were usually constructed of iron staves held together with iron hoops, similar to storage barrels. If that does not seem sufficiently sturdy - they weren't. Bombards too frequently burst when fired, flinging shrapnel into their handlers. They were fat and made ungainly by being mounted in wooden trays with (at best) little wooden wheels to move them. Moving them was usually by oxen which was so slow, or by boat, wherever the attack point could be reached by navigatable water. Their crews were poorly trained and perhaps ill at ease around potential grenades. Bombards fired carved stone spheres, which required time and extra labor to hammer out the projectiles. The noise of bombards sometimes frightened defenders more than the effect of hurled stone spheres.
A late cast bombard, made for Mehmed II, cast in 1464. It was cast in 2 parts for ease of transportation. It weighed 18 tons and was 17 ft. long. It still used stone shot. 1494 Charles VIII conquers Naples using cannon Asserting what he was sure was his right, Charles VIII of France wished to lay claim to the Kingdom of Naples and went there in 1494. To back up his claim, the king brought along an army of 18,000 men - along with about 40 cannon. The first to stand in their way was Florence, but upon hearing news of the fall of the little fort of Fivizzano, Duke Piero de' Medici acquiesced to Charles. Other walled defenses capitulated. Rome followed the example of Florence. The Kingdom of Naples was next. The border stronghold of Monte San Giovanni had previously withstood a siege for seven years. French cannon, however, quickly breached its walls. French foot surged in and slaughtered its garrison. All within in a mere eight hours. The speed and ease with which the French took one fortification after another astonished and profoundly shocked Italians and then other Europeans upon hearing the news. In 1498 the Senate of the powerful Republic of Venice issued: "...the wars of the present time are influenced more by the force of bombards and artillery than by men at arms..." and next had that republic acquire firearms as quickly as possible. Why French Cannon Was the Best of 1494 These were Cannon we would recognize, mounted on carriages with large wheels and trails, drawn by horse, not slow oxen. The gunpowder was improved, consisting of granules (corned) rather than a flour-like powder (which burned slower). A cannon such as this could have one third the caliber of its chunkier predecessor, the bombard, but have the same range and punch. What blasted out of the cannon's tapered barrel was a cast iron ball, not a lighter carved stone one. With trained gunners, "...they almost always marched right along with their armies and were led right up against the walls of a town with such speed, the space between shots was so brief, and the balls flew so speedily, and were driven with such force, that as much execution was inflicted in a few hours as used to be done in Italy over the same number of days." - Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'italia, 1562.
In 1519, Niccolo Machiavelli summed up the French effect: "No wall exists, however thick, that artillery cannot destroy in a few days." But! By then Machiavelli was already being proved wrong. European Field Cannon, 1500-1600
Other Gunpowder Weapons The Ribauldequin or Organ Gun, this one from the 1600s, was a multi-fire antipersonnel weapon.
The Petard was a renaissance shape charge used in place of a battering ram to destroy gates or walls when the attackers could access them directly. Bronze Swivel Gun, Dutch, 1590 Mortars: Up and Over The very walls that made the artillery fort what it was also served well to protect the buildings it enclosed against cannon fire. Cannons with their trajectories in near straight lines or shallow arcs could not drop a cannonball precisely over a wall and into the enclosed area.
Note the fuse hole at the left in the mortar round. The mortar changed that to make any set of buildings behind fort walls vulnerable - very vulnerable. The mortar, with an arc higher than long for its trajectory, simply lobbed its rounds over the walls. As cannon chewed up the walls, their companion mortars pulped the fort's interior. The Spanish introduced the mortar in 1588 at the siege of Wacthendonck in the Lowlands. But the Spanish did not exploit the advantage of this lobbing weapon and came to the conclusion, proved misguided, that it was a weapon for the defense. On the contrary, it became a prime tool for attackers because they could concentrate the fire of several mortars into one small area (whereas those inside the fort had to scatter their mortar fire at diverse targets way outside the walls). That was not all!!! The mortar added a second and very devastating feature to bombardment the Exploding Mortar Shell. Conceived by a Thomas Malthus in 1634, the shells it lobbed could literally be that: shells of iron around a core of gunpowder. Not only did mortar shells drop into buildings within the fort, they exploded upon arrival. Imagine a heavy sphere about 30 centimeters in diameter crashing down through the roof and top floor and perhaps all the way to the ground floor - then exploding. At the very least, the interior was gutted, more likely, the structure collapsed or caught fire. So effective was the exploding mortar shell that some fort defenders capitulated, not after the first cannon shots were fired, but when mortar rounds began to fall inside. This devastating feature posed a risk for attackers, though. It was very tricky to have everything go as intended. The mortar round, packed with powder, had only a fuse hole into which was inserted a slow-burning fuse. That fuse was lit manually by the gunner immediately before discharging the mortar itself. If the mortar misfired, then the mortar crew had, to put it mildly, an urgent emergency. Presumably a fast toss of a bucket of
water might put out that fuse. But if that didn't work, or if no one had the presence of mind, the next few seconds could get, um, messy. Even if the mortar fired as anticipated/hoped, should the fuse have been too short or burned too fast, the shell simply made a harmless flash above the fort; if the fuse was too long or burned too slow, the shell could bury itself into the ground or below a house with much of the explosive force absorbed by the earth. Remember Exploding Shells are a late development and could not yet be used in cannons. Bronze Mortar